The FCC said on Friday it will extend by 30 days a deadline for VoIP providers to tell customers about 911 emergency calling (e911). After that it will shut off their service.
The FCC this May ordered Internet phone service providers to ensure emergency 911 calls go directly to emergency dispatchers and required companies to get acknowledgements from all subscribers. The FCC said they’d require operators to disconnect service to anyone who fails to reply by August 29th.
Now the FCC has extended the deadline to September 28. Several companies said disconnecting subscribers could cause more harm than good.
VOIP services use an internet connection, so knowing a caller’s location can be difficult. Cellular providers are required to provide location information as are land line providers.
Vonage uses Intrado for their e911 service. It consists of a Vonage E-911 server that queries an Intrado server for call routing instructions about where to send a 911 call. The E-911 system then queries Intrado for details about the phone number and registered address of that number.
But doing the Right Thing for 911 is subject to interpretation.
Currently, wireline and wireless phone users pay a monthly service charge, which is collected by the states and remitted to the county governments to fund E911.
But the states have dropped the ball.
According to a National Emergency Number Association (NENA) study, states have lagged behind the FCC’s mandated deadline. Only about 50 percent of public safety answering points (PSAPs) in the United States will be E911 Phase II compliant by 2005, four years past the FCC’s initial deadline for the installations. By the end of 2007, about 80 percent of the nation will have access to E911 Phase II capable PSAPs, according to the study.
A centralized national E911 coordinating office run jointly by the U.S. Commerce Department and the Department of Transportation was authorized by Congress to the tune of $250 million to improve their 911 communications systems.
But many states took the 911 money and spent it elsewhere.
States that have diverted E911 surcharge fees and spent it elsewhere (a common practice), are ineligible for the matching grants.
Broadband Reports says FCC critics charge they’re engineering the death of indie VoIP. On the surface the move seems like a simple way of ensuring public safety, but critics believe it’s really an incumbent engineered attempt to crush upstart VoIP competitors.
Related DailyWireless stories including; 911 For VoIP, 211, 311, 411, 511 & 911, Amber Alert Adds Messaging, Location By Triangulation – Not and E-911: Seeking a Location.
[...] In the late 1990s, the FCC created wireless Enhanced 911 rules (Wikipedia on 911) that require cell phone providers to report the telephone number of a wireless 911 caller, the location of the antenna that received the call and information about the signal’s location to within 50 to 300 meters. The main problem in getting E911 in place is individual States which have taken the 911 fees paid by consumers and used the money for other purposes. Enhanced 911 (E911) automatically associates a physical address or location with the calling party’s telephone number. VoIP 911, because it uses the internet for phone traffic, is less straightforward. According to Wikipedia; TDMA and GSM networks such as Cingular and T-Mobile use time difference of arrival (TDOA) while CDMA networks such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS tend to use handset-based radiolocation technologies, which are technically more similar to radionavigation. GPS is one of those technologies. [...]
Left by dailywireless.org » Mountain Rescue UAVs on December 15th, 2006